Leora Gaster – An Introduction to Mind Body Studies – the Work of Dr. Feldenkrais

8/9 March 2014

A Master Class in Clarity

by Janet Heath

From the first “Please lie on your back...” to the final “Any questions?” I sensed we were all enthralled. The group was comprised of people with a wide range of experiences of the work of Dr. Feldenkrais; from reading a book about it to being teachers of several years standing. I was curious as to how “An Introduction….” could be constructed to enable us all to gain something valuable from a two-day workshop. Leora didn’t disappoint. Even the seasoned teachers were heard to say “Amazing!” and “Fantastic!” at the end, and when I spoke to someone who had no experience of Dr. Feldenkrais’ work she said she felt inspired to know and do more.

So what is it that makes Leora Gaster such an inspirational teacher? Together with her mother,

Mia Segal, she was my first introduction to Feldenkrais’ work and I remember then the clarity of her teaching and her very evident passion for the subject, which ensured a high level of

attention and interest from all participants. It’s as if she really wants you to “get it” and I know Leora

is dedicated to spreading what she calls “the work” around the globe so that everyone can benefit

There were about 30 of us who met in a lovely old hotel in downtown San Diego for a 5 day workshop with Mia Segal this January. The weather was literally freezing but Mia and her daughter Leora created a warm, generous atmosphere that had us all learning and working well together. There was such a marked change in the sound of the room during our partnering time over the five days. In the first two days as we were searching for comprehension of what Mia was asking for, there was a lot of talking and noise. For the last three days, the sounds were completely different. There were great, rich silences punctuated with ahs, ooohs, and ah-ha's amid sprinklings of soft laughter.

How did we do that...

Because I knew I was going to write this report, I queried people during the five days and tried to get a feel for common experiences. One thing that I heard from a number of people has to do with Mia and Leora's ideas about knowing, authority and discovery.

They not only behaved, but taught us to behave with less arrogance, less authority and more ability to explore and discover. They showed us how to NOT know as well as how to find out. Leora repeated over and over that in her experience, Guild graduates have plenty of sensitivity (and lots of ideas) but we don't seem to know what to do with what we sense. She described her interest in separating content from form (with a reference to NLP), and in teaching us a form that could be applied to every situation. Interestingly, I think that's exactly what they did. They gave us a very simple, functional framework to apply to our sensing.

After an enriching seminar in Palo Alto, California this past August, we thought we'd share a group class taught by Mia Segal.

The first audio clip is the story about this particular ATM called Noguchi. Some may know of this ATM referred to as a different name. However, we wanted to share why Mia calls it Noguchi and how she was first introduced to it by Moshe.